4 Public Figures Who Should Appear This Season on Mad Men

Mad Men's third season spoiled popcult junkies everywhere by including Conrad Hilton as a supporting player. Now, for a fourth season that's canted on the verge of a celebrity-fronted cultural revolution, I insist Mad Men include another public figure in its assortment of story arcs. Here are my suggestions.

1. Petula Clark

Mad Men's fourth season is most alluring not because of preexisting story lines, but because certain pop phenomena will inevitably shake up the proceedings at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. As the British Invasion ushers in a new zeal for celebrity mania, SCDP will want a piece of it, even if they remain out of step with the two-timing, shape-shifting zeitgeist. Petula Clark, the singer of "Downtown" and prime British Invasion chanteuse, bears a clean-cut Ann Margret appeal that may seem dynamite to Roger Sterling. I'd kill to see SCDP try to land a commercial campaign for New York beautification with Clark's failed U.S. single "Don't Sleep in the Subway."

2. Dick Cavett

Let's not forget that "clean-cut" remained a powerful niche in the 1960s. Dick Cavett, the bone-dry talk show host with a button-down appeal, will eventually establish a counter-cultural legacy when he invites Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills, and Nash onto his program and into America's living rooms during the summer of '69. But because Don Draper will be concerned with appearing old-fashioned in 1964-5, he should reject the opportunity to use Cavett as a commercial voice actor and claim he's too staid for America. I'd prefer if he stated, "If I wanted Bob Newhart for this campaign, I'd get Bob Newhart."

3. Lee Iacocca

Now, including one of the biggest CEO's of the 20th century may seem too on-the-nose and literal for Mad Men's writers -- but the man who gave us Ford's famous "56 for '56" campaign and single-handedly saved Chrysler would be a burst of reality for a firm that's doomed to confront the changing times sooner or later. Since Don met Connie Hilton in a bar last year, I'd like to see Pete Campbell meet Iacocca in a Greenwich Village bar and shower praise upon him -- only to receive grave smirks in return. Mind you, I always vote for epic Pete Campbell comeuppance.

4. Tab Hunter

Mad Men's come up with inventive ways to weave homosexuality into side plots, and '50s-'60s heartthrob Tab Hunter could bring the subject to the fore. As Hunter, whose star is fading, is drafted for a commercial campaign at SCDP (of course), the all-American star's closeted homosexuality could be acknowledged by Peggy's assistant Joey, who claims he's heard rumors. Scheming Peggy, who's had gay friends for at least a season now, can argue that his ambiguous sexuality is a selling point -- but her pleas fall on deaf ears.